


what i couldn't find

by likebrightness



Category: Smash (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, post-ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 02:39:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2796608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likebrightness/pseuds/likebrightness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>…as much as he doesn’t want to deal with a drunken Karen passed out in his lobby, it’s better than her passed out in the street.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what i couldn't find

-

Derek leaves before three, in the end. It’s just past two when he kisses Ivy goodbye and heads back to his own apartment. 

He likes the casual thing. He and she have always been good together in bed, and really never were good together any place else. So this works—good sex, no drama, and he’s not complaining at all about the way it takes his mind off of Karen. 

When he gets to his building though, she’s right back at the front of his mind. And in the front of his building, literally. He wouldn’t believe it if he weren’t seeing it himself, but there she is, sleeping on a couch in the lobby.

“Ms. Cartwright wanted me to let her up to your apartment to wait for you,” the doorman says. “Policy is not to let someone into the building at all, but…she had perhaps been drinking, and initially sat on the curb to wait. It was past midnight, and I know she’s been your guest before.”

“Thank you, Ian,” Derek says, because as much as he doesn’t want to deal with a drunken Karen passed out in his lobby, it’s better than her passed out in the street. He gives the guy a twenty and heads over to the couch. 

Briefly but seriously, he considers leaving her. She called him a jealous old man today, and made him feel like one, a bit, so excuse him for not feeling particularly chivalrous toward her. But he’s not that much of an arsehole, not to her at least. He ends up kneeling beside her. She’s beautiful, honestly. Probably more beautiful when she sleeps, he thinks, because she can’t spout any drivel about Jimmy or her  _favorite_  song or really anything at all. He wonders if he could carry her for the 23-floor elevator ride just so he doesn’t have to wake her. But her waking up in his arms is probably worse than waking her up now. 

“Karen,” he says. He doesn’t touch her, isn’t sure he’s allowed to anymore. Isn’t sure he was ever allowed to, really. That’s what bothers him most—that he assumed things instead of growing a pair and just talking to her, and that that’s what truly fucked him over.

He says her name again, and she blinks a couple of times before her eyes fully open. 

“Derek?” like she’s surprised that he’s there, which means she’s forgotten that she fell asleep  _in his building_. 

“C’mon, love,” he says. 

He offers his hand to help her, and she takes it, doesn’t let it go once she’s standing. She’s a little clumsy on her feet; he’s not sure if that’s from tiredness or if Ian was underestimating even more than Derek thought when he said Karen had “perhaps” been drinking. 

They are silent on the elevator. Her hand is still in his; it’s sleep-warm and makes him wonder what the rest of her body feels like—which is not what he’s trying to do, but he just came from Ivy’s and maybe his blood’s still thrumming a bit. He has to let go, though, to get his keys and open his door.

She walks into his apartment like it’s hers. 

“Where have you been?” she says. 

Because yeah, that’s her business. He scoffs and heads for the kitchen. She needs water, even if she doesn’t know it. 

She watches him get the glass and fill it up, just stands there looking at him. 

“What are you doing here, Karen?” he asks when he hands it to her. 

She puts the glass to her lips and drinks the entire thing, still staring at him. 

He’s seen her drunk before, but he hasn’t seen her drunk like this. Normally she gets loud, not obnoxiously so, just that kind of enthusiastic volume, like her night is going exactly as she wants it to go. Usually when she’s drunk, she laughs, loud then, too, and infectious. Now she’s quiet, and sad, maybe, and he simultaneously wants to kiss her and kick her out of his apartment. 

She puts the empty glass on the counter and says, “If I tell you Jimmy and I broke up, can I have my song back?” 

He feels relieved, immediately, which makes him feel pathetic immediately after that. Made only more pathetic by the fact that he notices that she didn’t say they  _did_ break up, just asks what would happen if she  _told_  him they broke up. She’s not getting the song back either way, of course, but his pulse is way too dependent on which it is. 

“It’s still your song, Karen,” is what he says. “She has five lines of it. A cappella.” 

“She’s mad at me, you know, for not wanting her to have it.” She walks to the living room, stands in front of his windows. The only lights on are at the door and in the kitchen, so she is silhouetted by those of the city. “Is mad at me for thinking of myself as the star. But I am the star, so.” 

He doesn’t think of her as confident, generally. It’s annoying, the way she needs to be told that she’s good. They had gotten to a point with  _Bombshell_  where he could give her a smile after a song and that was enough, but something about  _Hit List_  has her needing more approval again. He’s actually surprised she’s pulling off the diva brat routine so well. 

“You are,” he agrees, because it’s the truth. He thinks about adding the fact—and that’s what it is, a  _fact_ —that she’d be the star even if Ana had twice the number of songs she did. She was still the star when Rebecca fucking Duvall was on Bombshell, he’s pretty sure. Anyone who watches the show and is more impressed with Ana than Karen is an idiot—Richard Francis too, no matter how nice that piece in the Times was.

“How do you know so much about Jimmy?” she says. 

He refills her water glass because he really doesn’t care to answer. He gave the kid eight thousand dollars, excuse him for looking into him a bit. And if that also allowed him to look into the bloke hitting on Karen, so be it. 

She’s still in the middle of his living room, staring out the windows at nothing. He brings her the water, but she doesn’t take it from him. 

“You’re why we broke up.”

Fuck if that’s not the best thing he’s heard all night. 

“Because you told me those things about him. And he won’t tell me anything.” 

And that softens his enjoyment of the previous sentence, but honestly not by that much. 

“I’m sorry I called you an old man,” she says, still looking at the city instead of him. 

“A jealous old man,” he clarifies, even though she seems like she’s doing fine having this conversation with only herself. 

“Yeah, but I’m not sorry about saying the jealous part.” She finally looks at him. “You are.”

He’s not walking into that. “So you came to apologize?” 

She rolls her eyes, but lets him avoid the question anyway. “Or something,” she says, and takes the second glass of water from him. 

“Or something.”

“Why are you so frustrating?”

Asks the drunk girl in his apartment at three in the morning. The drunk girl who can apparently forgive lying, being a general ass and being a drug addict more easily than she can forgive cowardice. Which, okay, maybe the cowardice led to lying, and maybe he’s a bit of an asshole, but he’s not on cocaine, or whatever else Jimmy’s been doing. 

He doesn’t answer her question, thinks it was probably rhetorical anyway. He walks back to the kitchen instead, leans against the counter with his hands on either side of the sink, his head down. It’s three in the morning and she’s drunk in his apartment and he’s tired and she’s the one who is frustrating. And what’s more frustrating is that he still cares about her, still wants her to forgive him, still thinks it wouldn’t be terrible if she stayed in his bed tonight. 

“You are,” she says suddenly, loudly. She’s still in the living room, bracketed by the city lights, but she’s facing him now, arms crossed over her chest. “You’re frustrating and jealous and  _completely_  confusing. And I like you anyway. And that’s confusing, too.” 

He looks at her. Her face is shadowed, unreadable. She uncrosses her arms and they fall to her sides.

“I don’t know why I came,” her voice is quiet. “I feel like I don’t know anything anymore.”

She sounds so  _sad_  that he considers just crossing his apartment to kiss her. It wouldn’t fix anything, but it might help somehow. He hasn’t made her smile in days. 

He says, “Darling,” and thinks  _I love you_. 

“I should go.” 

“No,” he says, before she even has a chance to start for the door. “It’s late. Stay.” 

She gives him this  _look_  that makes him roll his eyes hard enough he’s surprised he doesn’t pull a muscle. 

“I have a guest room,” he says, and she stops giving him the look. 

She nods. 

She’s so  _big_  on stage, she has just such a huge presence, takes up the entire room, that it’s off putting, how small she seems here. He doesn’t usually notice how young she is—except when she calls him an old man, maybe—but she is; young and confused and quiet and  _small_. He wants to hold her.

He leads her upstairs instead, shows her the bathroom, shows her clean towels—actively doesn’t think about the potential of her showering in his apartment in the morning. He fills her water glass one more time.

She still looks small, awkward in the guest room. He allows himself to kiss her forehead. 

“Goodnight, darling,” he says, can’t help but add, “I’m right down the hall if you need anything.” 

It takes him an inordinate amount of time to fall asleep. He spends half of it deciding what to make her for breakfast, half of it straining to hear any sound, any chance of her walking down the hall, walking to him.

-

In the morning, he’s got French toast ready, caramelized bananas and all, before knocking gently on the door to the guest room. He figured she’d wake up as he was cooking, but they were up late, he supposes. 

He pushes the door open when she doesn’t answer, finds the bed perfectly made, the water glass empty on the bedside table. 


End file.
